Oral storytelling used to be everywhere. Bartenders and tradesmen used to do it. Grandmothers and farmers. It used to be that everyone you’d meet would have at least a few in them and could on occasion tell and share them.

I think this tradition has been very misunderstood, however. We hear about storytelling and we think, “oh yes, fairy tales! Oral storytelling. Yes, I know all about that. It was how we passed down traditions. Folk wisdom and superstition. Mm-hmm, we did that quaint stuff before we developed books and Netflix.”

It’s just my humble opinion, but I think that’s off the mark and entirely unfair. Our modern, reductive and rational sensibilities are giving us a wrong sense of what it means and what it’s like to be told a story. We ought not to intellectualize a practice that was far from intellectual, which we haven’t had much opportunity to experience ourselves.

So, here you are: for what it’s worth, here’s a story, told “in person,” from me to you. It’s a very old story, but one that many used to know…

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